The Walking Dead Recap: Rotting from Within

Carol breaks.

That was a first. As Rick's sentence of exile bore no mark Carol's unapologetic face — frozen lifeless from the pain and consistently crumby plot twists that life dealt her — The Walking Dead experienced a casualty of the soul. Though banishment might be mercy, the departure felt all the more tragic: a loss worth noting amidst the countless human potlucks that have claimed Rick's merry gang of expendable companions.

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Yet it was strange, too. Carol's transformation occurred in the span of a commercial break visit to the refrigerator. It would have been far more believable if more tragedies compounded on Carol, weighing her down to her current state (like, say, cancer money troubles and meth market mafiosos did earlier on AMC). Then when she did become the grill master of sickly survivors, it would have made just a bit more sense. Instead, we caught Carol with her hands in the cookie jar. And after that point, who wants to sit through one back peddling self-justification after the other? (Though to be fair, it would be nice to forget about Sophia, too.

Also: Sweeping murder under the rug with a throwaway line like "We all change," then playing the Sharon Van Etten chorus of "Everything Changes" was pretty damn ham-fisted.

At the same time, The Walking Dead isn't about nuance. A "death" like Carol's was deep for the show. The situation also became a catalyst for putting Rick down a new and interesting road. After deducing Carol as the culprit, he faced the same sticky situation he had with Shane: Does he hold hope that he can fix a broken friend, or does he let the situation fester until the point where he has to stab her guts out? Rick wisely chose neither. He eliminated a threat before it grew too troublesome, while also not directly contributing to the zombie outbreak. It also disproved Carol's baiting words of "You can be a farmer and you can be a leader, but you can't be both." Rick is finally tight-roping that fine line all members of the zombie apocalypse should aspire towards.

For a slower-paced chapter, this one actually worked. The Walking Dead's greatest lie has been that zombies aren't nearly as dangerous as the surviving humans left. That was half-heartedly proven in the way of the Governor, albeit in a Lex Luthor-style of moustache-twirling villainy. What happened to Carol's spirit is far more sinister — a sign that maybe, just maybe, the most dangerous threats really are the most silent.

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Your Zombie Apocalypse Survival Companion

Useful information from this week's episode.

• Another entry in the zombie lexicon: Skin-eaters. A bit more on the nose than Walkers, or Dead Heads, but it will do.

• Don't give your favorite watch away to zombie-killing rookies if you ever expect to get it back.

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